


night for many miles

by monsterq



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Cooking, Gen, Ignoring the mid-credits scene for fun and profit, Post-Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Team Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2017-12-15
Packaged: 2019-02-15 03:02:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13021881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monsterq/pseuds/monsterq
Summary: Late-night snacks with the Revengers, or, the team that cooks together stays together.





	night for many miles

**Author's Note:**

> Let’s say the ship has technology that uses elements gathered as it travels to generate food ingredients.
> 
> The idea of Loki's spell was in part inspired by someone else's musings on the subject; I can't seem to recall who or where I came across it. 
> 
> Title from Richard Siken’s “Dislocated Room.”

There were regular meals, of course. The people of Asgard hadn’t waited for their king to assign them tasks; they had done so themselves, according to what seemed best to them. Thor was sure that if he had objected, demanded they leave the decisions to him, they would have acquiesced, but he saw no reason to do so. They knew their own skills better than he did, and besides, they needed it, a puzzle to solve, something to do. The control.  
  
So yes, three meals a day were provided for the ship, ranging from basic sustenance to, on a fairly regular basis, small feasts complete with singing, stories, and laughter. All of Asgard now crammed into the largest room of the ship, taking fierce, defiant delight in good food and each other’s company.  
  
Still, there were days Thor skipped the usual meals. He attended every feast, not needing to be told how much his people needed the reassurance of his presence, but at other times, focused on the headache-inducing complexity of running a ship—running a realm—or just, if truth be told, too tired and heartsick to eat, he waved away the meals his people brought him with a smile and thanks, having them send it elsewhere. The first time Loki had seen him do this, his expression had been priceless. “Are you even my brother?” he’d demanded, and a moment later his face had done something even more complicated, as though hearing his own words after the fact and unsure what to do with them. Thor had laughed at him, laughed hard enough that he found himself feeling much better and almost had the food called back after all. Loki had shook his head, trying to look miffed, but there had been a tiny, unwilling smile on his face, even if shadowed by something else, something Thor couldn’t quite read. There had been a time he had thought he knew his brother’s mind as well as he knew his own. Now he knew it well enough to know how very many things were hidden to him. He was learning.  
  
The point was, there was a problem with skipping meals, as reasonable as it felt at the time, and that was that he found himself hungry. ( _You don’t say_ , he heard Loki murmur in his mind, dry as dust.) Very hungry, even. He did tend to have a prodigious appetite, as many people had taken pains to inform him on a great many occasions, and it seemed that even as his body rejected food in one hour, it would in another register its grievances with him twice over. And Thor didn’t quite want to summon back the cooks, not after he had sent them away before.  
  
Really, he should have learned after the first two times this happened. Yet there were still occasions he could summon no appetite, couldn’t take his eye from the documents he was poring over, not even to eat. Sometimes he remembered to have them set aside the food for later, but more often, in the moment such a thing felt unnecessary or even repellent, if it occurred to him at all. It was foolish, but well, he hadn’t had much practice at wisdom. After a while, he began storing a few items of dried food in his quarters, things he could eat in such a predicament, bothering no one. But this was meager fare, and it began to grow monotonous as well.  
  
That was how, one night, far past midnight by ship’s time, he found himself standing in a small kitchen three hallways removed from his quarters.  
  
It wasn’t as if he’d never cooked. Granted, he’d done very little on Asgard, especially before he was cast out. But on Midgard, he’d picked some things up—there hadn’t been servants, after all, and besides, expectations were different. _He’d_ been different, or tried to be. And he wanted to make Jane and his friends happy.  
  
Still, now, looking around at the stored food and implements, Thor felt a rush of nerves. The abundance of choices pressed at him, overwhelmed him. He approached the pantry and peered inside. Some foods were recognizable, but not all of them.  
  
His stomach grumbled. He gathered his determination.  
***  
Fifteen minutes later, he was beating eggs in a large metal bowl when the door clicked open. He whirled, pointing a whisk at the entrance. But—  
  
“Oh,” Thor said.  
  
“Oh!” said the intruder.  
  
It was Bruce Banner. He’d returned to his smaller form a week after the battle, following a feast one evening. They were gathered to tell and listen to traditional tales, Thor’s people and Hulk and the Sakaarans too, and it was during one such story that Hulk, cross-legged against a wall, leaning forward with his chin propped on his turkey-sized fists, had shivered, grunted, and crumpled into Banner. It was all at once and without him seeming to expect it, the way an exhausted worker who had toiled all day and was finally at rest might find their legs suddenly folding beneath them. There Banner had been, blinking on the floor, dark-rumple-haired and pink and comparatively tiny, bare-chested and draped in torn trousers stretched to the size of bedsheets, and Thor had felt a swell of relief and joy at seeing him.  
  
Banner stared at Thor and Thor stared at Banner. After a moment, Banner gathered himself, stepped inside, and let the door fall shut behind him. “Well, this is unexpected. What’s going on? I mean—do you often—” he waved his hand.  
  
“No,” Thor said awkwardly. “I’ve never…I was just hungry. I had no dinner.” He paused. “Why are you here?”  
  
Banner laughed a little uncomfortably. “You have no idea how hungry it makes a person to triple in size, go on a rampage, and then shrink back down again. Burns a lot of calories. It’s like I’m starving for weeks.”  
  
“Oh,” said Thor. That sounded reasonable. He did remember a rather Asgardian level of food disappearing into his companion after previous battles. “Well, my friend, this is your kitchen as much as mine. I am sure it can hold both of us.” After he said it, he thought that had perhaps been a poor choice of words.  
  
Banner didn’t answer, one of his small, uncomfortable expressions flickering over his face almost too quickly to see, but he came closer. Thor turned back to his bowl. After a moment he felt Banner’s heat at his back. “What are you making?”  
  
“Nothing special,” Thor said, feeling oddly embarrassed. “A dish of beaten eggs. An omelet, I am told. I was taught the recipe by my first friends on Midgard.”  
  
“Sounds nice,” Banner said. He moved past Thor, looked in the Midgardian-like refrigerator and the pantry, and sighed. “Times like this, I really miss, you know, microwaved egg rolls and instant ramen. It’s not like I can’t cook,” he added almost defensively. “I’m pretty good, actually. It’s just hard to find the energy when I’m like this.”  
  
“You are welcome to some of my omelet, if you wish,” said Thor.  
  
“Oh,” said Banner again. “Really?” He sounded much more surprised than Thor thought the offer warranted. “I wouldn’t want to take away…” He glanced at the bowl again. “Well, that does looks like a lot of eggs.”  
  
Thor grinned. “I’ll add more.” He went back to the refrigerator, extracted six more eggs, three in each hand, and cracked them into the bowl over Banner’s half-hearted objections. Next, he searched for a pan to cook them in. Banner sighed and came over, nudging in beside Thor and taking over the whisk.  
  
Thor found himself fussing a bit as he located a pan and set up the stove, a device also not much different from the ones on Midgard. “Are you well, friend?” he asked after a moment.  
  
Another flash of surprise. “Yes, actually.” He paused, stirring the egg mixture some more, though by now it was quite thoroughly blended. “I’m just glad I’m…here, and me. And that you’re here too, of course.” His mouth twisted a little. “I wasn’t sure I’d turn back.”  
  
“You said,” Thor agreed.  
  
“Yeah, but—I’m still not really sure why I did turn back. I’m missing years of my memory from Sakaar, and then I went and did it again. I didn’t know if I’d ever be me again.” He sighed, staring into the bowl of eggs as if it were a scrying crystal. “It’s like I was dead, only somehow I came back, and then, like some kind of idiot, I just decided to die again for real. Except it’s not even like that, because something that used to be me was still walking around.” He sighed. “I don’t know.”  
  
“You truly do not remember anything?”  
  
Banner was silent for a moment. “Actually, lately, I’ve been getting flashes. Having dreams. Maybe it’s still in there somewhere. I don’t know how this works, or why it’s been different, why I got stuck that way, why I can’t really remember it. I mean, the memory always fluctuates, but usually I have _something_. Lately it’s even been like we’re copiloting, almost. Sometimes. Before this, I mean.” He scratched his head. “I keep wondering if the other guy did something to keep me down. Or if it was something freaky about the planet, I don’t know, anything. Or if _I_ did something wrong that—that made me weak or locked me out somehow. I thought I was making progress with him, but now…”  
  
“Could you not come to some sort of bargain?” Thor asked. “That you share time and space, so that each of you gets what he wants?” He thought of the conversations he’d had with the Hulk, the ones with Banner almost like echoes. _I prefer you._ He felt a twinge of guilt. Why did his teammates have to be in competition with each other? Couldn’t he love them both as his friends and allies, not fearing that the presence of one meant he would never again know the company of the other?  
  
Banner laughed. “You know, if you’d suggested that six, seven years ago, I’d have said you were crazy. I thought there was no way I could make a deal with him, no solution that involved ever letting him out. I thought all he wanted was to destroy and hurt, like a rabid animal, and if I couldn’t get rid of him, all I could do was keep him caged. Now…it’s strange. We’ve worked together. He’s done good things, saved people. He’s—we’ve—worked with a team. Which is almost what makes it so messed up that this is happening now.” He set down the whisk and leaned against the counter, palms pressed flat against the edge. “Yeah, I would like to work out a deal with him, as weird as it feels to say. But now I don’t know if that’s even possible.”  
  
Thor searched for something to say, but he was preempted by Banner straightening up and decisively changing the subject. “So, I guess there are eggs in space, huh? And stoves, and frying pans. I guess the real question is, were the eggs laid by space chickens?” He paused. “Actually, I don’t think I want to know.”  
  
Thor found a block of butter for the pan and a blade to cut it with. He turned on the stove. “Well—”  
  
That was when the door opened again and the Valkyrie walked in.  
  
All parties froze. Again. The slice of butter dropped from Thor’s knife to the pan with a dull _plap_.  
  
“Well!” said the Valkyrie. “I’ll just…” She backed away.  
  
“No!” Thor said. “Wait, you don’t have to go. We were just making food. We didn’t even expect to meet each other here. Or you. Obviously.” He paused. Valkyrie stared at him, one eyebrow slightly raised. “Please don’t go,” he added, and found that he meant it.  
  
After a moment, she shrugged and came in, closing the door. “Who am I to refuse a request from my king?”  
  
Thor hadn’t meant it like that. But then, she probably knew that, and he doubted she would agree to stay if she didn’t want to. So he said nothing and turned on the stove. The butter began to glisten and melt, sliding in itself, golden liquid spreading across the pan. Valkyrie came closer. He felt her a few feet away, standing near Banner. He thought they were probably looking at each other, but he didn’t turn to see what was passing between them.  
  
“Were you hungry too?” Banner asked her.  
  
“Something like that,” she said. Thor tilted the pan so that the butter coated the surface as it disappeared; he poured in the beaten eggs, and then he did turn, leaning against the counter. She looked away from them and shrugged. “Turns out you can’t live on booze alone. And I don’t always want to come make nice with all of Asgard at meals, but…” She shrugged again.  
  
“Of course,” Thor agreed awkwardly. “Well, eat whatever you want. If you like, you can just pretend we’re not here.”  
  
She pursed her lips. “I don’t care either way.” Going for the refrigerator, she pushed past Banner but gave him a small, slightly strained smile. “Hey, big guy.”  
  
“Hi,” Banner said, sticking his hands in his pockets and dropping his gaze to the floor. After a moment, he added, “I remember you now. A little bit.”  
  
She glanced at him over her shoulder. “Oh yeah?” She drummed her fingers on the side of the refrigerator. “I have to say, that whole situation is really weird. How does it even—never mind. I don’t think I’m drunk enough for that conversation.”  
  
Banner coughed a nervous laugh. “You’re telling me.” He watched her sort through wrapped bundles of meat, cheese, and vegetables. “You know, when I was there, you were—” Valkyrie looked at him, and he looked like he regretted starting the sentence but forged on. “You were a friend, kind of. I—appreciate that.”  
  
She pulled something out of the refrigerator and came back over, setting it down on the table. “Well. You were too, I guess. It was a change, actually.” She tilted her head. “But a pretty good one.”  
  
No one said anything else. The silence stretched. Thor cleared his throat. “What are you making?”  
  
That, of course, was when the door opened one more time.  
  
They all looked over. Thor’s heart stuttered. In the doorway, Loki’s eyes went comically wide. He took a step back, fingers digging into the doorframe, face tilting away; Thor didn’t think he was meant to hear the muttered “Oh shit.”

 

It still felt strange to see him caught off guard.  
  
“Brother!” Thor called.  
  
Loki appeared to be considering fleeing. “…Thor,” he allowed after a moment. “I didn’t expect to see you here. Any of you.”  
  
“That does appear to be the common narrative tonight,” Thor agreed. “Please, don’t leave. We would rejoice in your company.” He spoke for himself, at least, and if Banner and the Valkyrie looked much less certain on that matter, he was sure they would come around.  
  
Loki licked his lips, hesitating, and then smiled and stepped into the room. Thor noticed that he gave Banner, now leaning against the table, a wide berth as he approached. “This is a surprise. Thor, I wasn’t even aware you could cook.”  
  
“Ah, well, that may be overstating things,” Thor admitted. “But there are some dishes I have mastered. Banner and I are making an omelet. The Valkyrie was just about to make a dish of her own.”  
  
Loki’s gaze flicked to her. “Was she, now?”  
  
Valkyrie crossed her arms and stared back. “Yeah, actually. And what are you here for? Just to be annoying?”  
  
“Of course,” Loki said, leaning against the wall with a certain deliberateness. “I’ve nothing better to do. I suppose you think I ought instead to drown my sorrows in drink in my quarters?”  
  
Valkyrie took a step forward.  
  
“Okay!” Banner said rather loudly. “Uh, Valkyrie, you never said—were you planning to make anything in particular?”  
  
She paused; finally, her head turned and she looked at Banner. It looked like her face was trying to make some expression but not quite managing it. “Yes,” she said, and didn’t continue.  
  
Thor observed her. Something in her eyes and the way she held her mouth made him think there was something she didn’t know how to say. Or know if she wanted to say. He took a stab. “What dish, then?”  
  
Her hands shoved into her pockets; her shoulders went determinedly loose. “There’s this stew,” she said. “Meat, potatoes, vegetables. Some seasoning. Nothing that special.”  
  
“But special to you, I think,” Thor said.  
  
Valkyrie’s mouth tensed again, then relaxed. She looked up at him, meeting his eye for a second before looking away. “I used to eat it years ago. Many years.” She hesitated again, fingers tapping against her leg. “My…my lover among the Valkyries. She used to make it for me.”  
  
“Oh,” said Thor. Banner hunched his shoulders a little further. Loki said nothing.  
  
Valkyrie didn’t continue, only went to the refrigerator, avoiding everyone’s eyes. She sorted through its contents, setting food aside on the counter, and then sought out a knife. “Used to be made over the hearth,” she added finally. “Cook the meat on the spit, the stew in a cauldron. The smell filling the whole hall. You know.”  
  
Thor remembered.  
  
“But this will work fine.” She set to chopping meat into rough cubes.  
  
Thor, heart aching in a way it had too often over the past weeks, turned back to his omelet. He’d left the heat quite low, and it was just beginning to gain form. He found salt and pepper and added a dash of each.  
  
“Are you going to put anything else in that?” Banner asked.  
  
Thor shrugged. “I had no particular plans. Why? Would you like to?”  
  
Banner came closer. “Maybe. It’s pretty good with cheese and mushrooms and some herbs.” He took in a breath, inhaling the scent slowly. “I used to have it that way as a kid.”  
  
“Did you?” Thor asked. “It sounds fine indeed.”  
  
Banner smiled. It wasn’t a happy smile, but it wasn’t bitter either. “Yeah. My mom used to make it for me on good days. She didn’t cook much, but she made a hell of an omelet, and some nights, when my dad was out and we were alone, we’d cook together. We tried all kinds of recipes, but this was my favorite.”  
  
“In that case,” Thor said, “I will be honored to use your mother’s recipe. I look forward to tasting it, provided we have the ingredients.”  
  
“Oh, we do,” Valkyrie said. Thor looked at her; she didn’t look up from the meat. “If they’re not special mushrooms or anything. I mean, you can see what kinds of herbs there are, but I definitely saw cheese and mushrooms.”  
  
“Thanks,” Banner muttered, sounding embarrassed. He went to find the required items, passing Loki, who twitched and tensed while trying to look as unconcerned as possible. It was an unconvincing impression, and Banner’s jaw clenched as he reached the refrigerator. But he found what he needed, even herbs that he said were either the same or a close approximation, and set to chopping them on another board beside Valkyrie.  
  
That left Thor and Loki pretending not to watch each other.  
  
Thor looked at the way Loki’s legs crossed too casually over one another, his hands tight at his sides, and thought about how it was between the two of them. It seemed it was always shifting, even just since Loki’s reappearance. Flickering back into himself on Asgard, his defensive showmanship, that feeling in Thor of mingled joy and anger; his brother yet lived, and again, he had mourned for nothing. Sitting on either side of Odin, the wind feathering through their hair and the sea before them, the ache of Loki’s face going unguarded the way it so seldom had for years. On Sakaar, the restraints keeping Thor trapped like an animal and his brother’s laughing face turned away; the offer in the tunnels that had made his heart clench even in its impossibility. The well-oiled dance of fighting side by side, as if nothing had ever changed; the tangled emotions pulsing from Loki in the elevator as Thor called his bluff, at last one step ahead; the look on Loki’s face as he had betrayed Thor, once again disavowing sentiment. Did he not know that each time was less convincing than the last? The switch beneath his fingers that left Loki convulsing and bug-eyed on the filthy floor. _No more, brother. You can choose. You must choose._ The veins standing out in Loki’s gray face. And finally, the way Thor’s chest had swelled with joy at his return, as he came to save his people, all his bright, brash showmanship lighting up his face. And then the feeling of him so solid in Thor’s arms, his stiff leathers and the smell of sweat and exhaustion.  
  
Maybe nothing had changed. Maybe everything had.  
  
He’d tried to talk about it, but pushing too far tended to turn Loki into a cornered cat. They had had that fight a couple times now, swift and tense; mostly they had been alone, but once Valkyrie had been there, and that had gone even more poorly. Loki had snapped at her to find something else to do; Valkyrie had suggested that he wouldn’t be having this problem if he’d just gotten over himself years ago and dealt with his issues rather than fucking things up for everybody else; his eyes had narrowed, his jaw had clenched, and he had lounged against the wall with an almost violent casualness as he remarked that that was interesting advice coming from a slave trader. “Oh, please don’t misunderstand,” he’d added when she straightened up, nostrils flaring. “I have enormous admiration for a well-cultivated sense of self-preservation.”  
  
Thor wanted to trust Loki; he wanted to stop wanting to trust him; he wanted to not have to think about it. In the set of Loki’s eyes and mouth now, the careful arrangement of his body, Thor thought he saw shadows of Loki’s own wants, his own fears.  
  
Loki shuffled as Thor stared absently, and finally, he cocked an eyebrow. “I’m sure we could have a portrait commissioned for your viewing, brother; it would certainly be more convenient. Or are you afraid I’ll disappear?”  
  
Thor swallowed most of the possible responses that presented themselves to him. He also swallowed the gleeful voice inside him that cried, _He called me brother!_ Instead, he said, “I’m only happy to see you, Loki. It’s good to have you here, with me. With us.”  
  
Loki actually flushed slightly, though he ducked his head nearly fast enough to hide it. He fidgeted with his hand. “Do you intend to flatter me into loyalty and virtue, then?” His voice was acidic, though not enough to distract from the anxiety radiating from him in waves.  
  
He was twitchy tonight, Thor thought, even skittish. He didn’t know why, but he’d have to tread carefully. Not that that had ever been a talent of his. “I have no particular intention,” he assured Loki as Banner came up beside him to mix the mushrooms, cheese, and herbs into the solidifying egg. The savory smell of the steam was enough to make his stomach growl. Valkyrie was dropping the meat into a pot with oil and seasonings. “Brother, were you planning to make something yourself?”  
  
There was a hesitation. Longer, Thor thought, than the question deserved. “Well,” Loki said. “I was, yes. Nothing important.”  
  
_Very important_ , Thor’s brain translated, and he straightened. While trying not to be too obvious about it—he didn’t want to scare Loki off. (Truly. Like a feral cat.) “Oh,” he said. “Anything in particular?”  
  
Loki fidgeted. Thor watched the lies pass his face and be discarded. Finally, something seemed to shift inside him. His walls didn’t fall so much as reshape themselves, from evasion to a defiant, if twitchy, nonchalance. “Yes, actually,” he said. “I found myself with a craving. A sweet tooth, perhaps. I wanted honey oat cakes.”  


The words hit Thor like a punch. “You wanted—” His voice had gone squeaky. So much for his attempt to be casual. Banner and Valkyrie both turned to stare. Thor cleared his throat and tried again. “Like we used to have with—with Mother?”  
  
It had been a tradition when they were small. When it was just the four of them, Thor, Loki, Frigga, and Odin, on days when they were out of the public eye. When they were just a family, not king and queen and princes. They’d made the sweet, crumbling cakes themselves, all working together, and then they’d eaten them with more honey at a table by the fire, sticky hands and all. It was a memory Thor kept tucked away in the deepest, most protected part of his heart, warm and sweet.  
  
Loki didn’t look at him. “Yes.” There was a pause. Banner and Valkyrie were looking back and forth between them. “It’s only a craving,” Loki added defensively. But he chewed his lip as if without realizing it, ears slightly pink, looking anywhere but at Thor.  
  
Thor hesitated. He could feel his friends’ gazes burning the side of his face; he felt certain that soon they would seek him out alone with questions. He could deal with that as it came. Now, though… “Could I help you make them?”  
  
There was another long hesitation. Then Loki, silent, only nodded.  
  
Thor couldn’t prevent the smile from stretching across his face. Loki glanced up and saw it but didn’t tell him off. Thor saw something happening at the corners of Loki’s mouth; he couldn’t say for certain what.  
  
Thor inhaled a breath filled with steam and realized with a start that the omelet was about to burn. He fetched a large plate and a flat metal implement and went to fold and extract it. Valkyrie was checking her own pot, stirring a little, aromas rising. Banner went over to help her chop the vegetables. The moment was broken, but Thor could almost hear his brother’s silence, feel his stillness by the wall to his back. Then Loki shifted and came closer, going to the pantry to look for ingredients.  
  
For a time, no one spoke. The kitchen, somewhat cramped now, filled with competing smells, warm and rich. The omelet ready and covered to keep in the heat, Thor began to edge toward Loki and the ingredients he was lining up on the counter—oats, honey, dried fruit, spices…  
  
“Damn,” Valkyrie said suddenly, and they all looked over at her. She pounded her fist on the counter. “I can’t remember how to make the broth.” She glared in frustration. “Or what order to add things, now that it comes to that.”  
  
“You don’t recall?” Thor repeated.  
  
She shook her head. “It was always her who made this, not me. She enjoyed it. It was never my interest.”  
  
Banner furrowed his brows. “Well, maybe you could try—”  
  
Something about Loki attracted Thor’s eye in the corner of his vision. He had put down the oats and the scales and was staring at the wall—but not at the wall. Thor recognized that look of his brother’s. It wasn’t that he wasn’t paying attention, or that he was irritated with the conversation. Loki’s fingers were moving slightly just above the counter.  
  
“Brother?” he asked.  
  
“One moment,” Loki said absently. He lifted his hands. Gestured sharply.  
  
A thick, well-thumbed book fell into his hands. As if unaware of their stares, Loki opened it, flicked through the pages. He licked the tip of one long finger and turned another page.  
  
“Um, Loki?” Banner said finally.  
  
Loki looked up. A slight smile touched his lips. “I believe this may be of use to you,” he said, and he slid the open book onto the counter beside Valkyrie.  
  
Thor came closer, craning to look; he saw Banner doing the same. Valkyrie ran her finger over the page, flipped a couple more pages and back again, and then looked up at Loki. “This is a cookbook. It’s an Asgardian cookbook.”  
  
Loki spread his hands. “With the recipe you seek, if I’m not mistaken.”  
  
“Loki, where did this come from?” Thor asked.  
  
“The library.”  
  
“Asgard’s library?”  
  
“Where else?”  
  
“But—” Thor stared at him. “It was destroyed. All of Asgard was destroyed. Did you—take and hide this book?” But why that one? Loki wasn’t exactly an avid cook, to the best of Thor’s knowledge—though he supposed Loki certainly would have had time to pick up new hobbies in the years they had been separated.  
  
Loki laughed. “Nothing so simple as that. No, I formulated a spell years ago to secure Asgard’s library in a hidden dimension. It allowed me access from any realm, as it existed both on Asgard, as it always had, and…elsewhere. So when Surtur’s devastation reached the library on this plane—” He shrugged. “It was destroyed there, yes, but in its other home, it could not be touched.”  
  
Thor tried not to gape but knew he was failing. “You did this? Why?”  
  
Loki shrugged again. “You yourself have accused me many times of loving books more than is prudent, brother.”  
  
Banner pushed up his glasses, seeming to forget the grease on his fingers. “You’re saying that Asgard’s library still exists? All its books, its knowledge? Loki, that’s—that’s amazing.” There was excitement in his expression, the kind Thor recognized as seeing on his brother’s face years ago, thousands of times, when some new book or scholar or subject had lit the fire of his interest.  
  
“It is,” Thor agreed, feeling his own smile stretch his face.  
  
Loki waved a hand in dismissal, but Thor saw embarrassed pleasure in the involuntary curl of his mouth. Strange, how his brother could so often seek admiration, yet other times shy away from it the way one who dwelled in the dark might flinch at light.  
  
“All right, all right,” Valkyrie said, paging through the book, “thanks or whatever,” but Thor saw a smile slip onto her face too as she turned her head away.  
  
They worked. The kitchen was warm and crowded, filled with mouth-watering smells. Banner began cutting the omelet into pieces, Valkyrie added ingredients to her stew, and Thor went to stand beside Loki. Their shoulders brushed for a moment as Thor tipped a cup to let oats cascade into a metal bowl. Loki poured honey after, slow ripples that glowed like sunlight across mountains.


End file.
